(aka "The Gospel According to Matthew" or "The
Gospel According to Saint Matthew" or "L' Évangile selon saint Matthieu")

directed
by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy 1964

Legendary director (and
avowed atheist) Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to Matthew [Il
vangelo secondo Matteo] is one of the great retellings of the story of Christ a
cinematic rendering (filmed by invitation from the Pope, no less) at once both
passionate and poetic.

With stunning black-and-white photography, an eclectic soundtrack (Odetta, Bach,
a Congolese mass, etc), and using a cast of non-professionals who voice dialogue
drawn directly from scripture, The Gospel According to Matthew depicts the key
events in the life of Christ, from immaculate conception to death on the cross.

Vaunted by the Vatican as one of its select few recommended films, acclaimed by
the Archbishop of Canterbury as a “great film”, and revered by critics and
audiences alike, Pasolini's Oscar-, Golden Lion-, and BAFTA-nominated film
remains a magnificent, awe-inspiring experience.

Edition
Details:
• Original Italian theatrical trailer for the feature (5:06)
• Sopralluoghi in Palestina [Scouting in Palestine], Pasolini’s 1965
film on the surveying of locations for The Gospel According to Matthew
(53:37)
• A 1963 newsreel extract on The Gospel According to Matthew and
Sopralluoghi in Palestina (1:16)
• A selection of outtakes from the original Sopralluoghi in Palestina
rushes (3:17)
• Newly translated optional English subtitles on both films
• A 36-page booklet featuring a 1963 letter by Pasolini to Lucio S.
Caruso of the Catholic Pro Civitate Christiana; a 2012-updated essay on
the film by critic Pasquale Iannone; excerpts from a 1969 interview with
Pasolini by Oswald Stack, on The Gospel According to Matthew and
Sopralluoghi in Palestina; an excerpt from the Book of Matthew; and rare
archival imagery

Blu-ray
Release Date: March 26th, 2012Transparent
Blu-ray Case

Chapters 22

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were ripped directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Masters of Cinema - Region 'B' Blu-ray - March 2012:

This film drains me - and I feel doubly exhausted in
MoC's new glorious 1080P transfer. I'm convinced that The Gospel According to
Matthew (Pasolini's correctly translated title) can't look any better than
this. The dual-layering has extracted every important facet of the film to the
new format medium. The bitrate is extremely high and supports the film's
thickness and heavy texture. Contrast is well-balanced to present a high level
of detail. After all the SD version I can safely say that, comparatively, this
MoC
Blu-ray is of stunningly beautiful quality.
Grain is present, there is slightly more information in the frame, the aspect
ratio is tight to the original 1.85:1, damage seems almost non-existent -
overall it is far beyond my expectations. I was blown away.

The music of Gospel is an important part of
the film experience and the Masters of Cinema group have via an authentic linear
PCM 2.0 channel track at 1536 kbps. This uncompressed transfer handles the
impacting music from "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child" to J.S.
Bach's Matthäus Passion, "Concerto for violin in E major (BWV 1042)" and
Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground".
Surprisingly this is the first digital edition with optional
English subtitles (all other were burnt-in or didn't offer English translation).
The
Blu-ray disc is
coded for region 'B' - which pains us all (that it is NOT region FREE) -
none more than Nick Wrigley.

Masters of Cinema have added some great supplements.
We get the 5-minute original Italian theatrical trailer for the feature and the
53-minute long Sopralluoghi in Palestina [Scouting in Palestine],
Pasolini’s 1965 film on the surveying of locations for The Gospel According
to Matthew. There is a 1963 newsreel extract on The Gospel According to
Matthew and Sopralluoghi in Palestina and 3-minutes of Outtakes from the
original Sopralluoghi in Palestina rushes. Also included in the package
is a stacked 36-page booklet featuring a 1963 letter by Pasolini to Lucio S.
Caruso of the Catholic Pro Civitate Christiana; a 2012-updated essay on the film
by critic Pasquale Iannone; excerpts from a 1969 interview with Pasolini by
Oswald Stack, on The Gospel According to Matthew and Sopralluoghi in
Palestina; an excerpt from the Book of Matthew; and rare archival
imagery.

A lead contender for
Blu-ray of the year - a magnificent package that should be a
significant reason to buy a region FREE player for 'A'-locked audiences.
The MoC has our very strongest recommendation!

***

ADDITION: Legend Films
(Colorized and black and white) - April 07': Easily I would put this
in my personal Top 100 films.

There was a flicker of hope for
a decent English subbed version here, but the entire package amounts to
nothing more than a curiosity. The dual-layered DVD offers a new
colorized, progressive (and shorter) version of the film that is dubbed
into English. There is also the complete original version (interlaced)
in a despairingly weak transfer, black and white all right, but burnt-in
subs and it may be the weakest version yet. So I was interested to see
this 'shorter' version with about 45 minutes cut but overall this is
truly a bastardized rendition with a DUB and of course the
colorization of a film that should only be seen in

black and white. The color does look good I'm sure that some will
suggest to me in email that it should be destroyed. I don't feel quite
that strongly and for $10 it does have some value as a comparative piece
of manipulated modern digitization but I think that some things shouldn't
be messed with... but regardless they are.

One day some production company will create a DVD of
this film that looks as good as the Kinowelt

but has optional English subtitles. Criterion - are you listening?

***

ADDITION- GCTHV (France) + Kinowelt
(German) - both region 2 - PAL - January 2005 - Okay, before we get started -
both French and German editions do NOT have English subtitles, which will remove
them from consideration immediately for many. It should also be noted that
because of the complexity of obtaining information for this comparison we were not able to ensure that all screen captures are
matching frames, but our contributors did the best
they can and have adhered to our standards of technical generation of those
images. We apologize that there are some minor discrepancies in exact frames. We
are fairly certain the first and last set of large captures are accurately
imitated. Some points:

1) The Kinowelt image is the brightest,
yet I cannot find example of digital boosting, but feel it MUST be there.
Regardless I like this image very much - it looks exceptionally clean.

2) The Tartan has the best subtitles,
although they are non-removable - an almost unforgivable mistake.

3) We can through the old Image
Entertainment and Water Bearer out of contention as their image quality is far
too poor - showing damage and looking to come from an analog source or having a
very poor bitrate transfer. They both have burnt-in subtitles.

4)The Tartan and Gaumont look very
similar in image quality with the Gaumont being slightly sharper.

5) The Kinowelt has consistent damage
on the left edge.

6) All editions are cropped to varying
degrees.

Final comments: As with our Persona comparison, I am
uncharacteristically going with the brighter image. This is very rare as, in
almost every case of a brighter image, it has digital manipulation in the form
of brightness/contrast boosting. Defending myself here, I still suspect that the
Gaumont is the most accurate image, but I figured why not indulge myself and
admit I like the brighter better in this case, especially since neither have
English subtitles - and it doesn't matter to most surfers to this page. Bottom
line about image: the Gaumont is better, but I prefer the Kinowelt. This
comparison on DVDDuel will bear that out -
CLICK HERE.

The film is so important in cinema in
general, that it is hard to believe that there is not an edition with removable
English subtitles in existence. We still rate the Tartan - but lets have some
extras and removable subtitles. Where the heck is Criterion?

NOTE: The Water Bearer has a good
documentary as an extra.

****

The print for the
Water Bearer version is from "The Pier Paolo Pasolini Foundation, Rome"
as stated on the back of the Water Bearer DVD case. It shows a lot of
good film grain, but I do notice the contrast level flickers and some
damage, although less than the Image Entertainment DVD. I am also
disappointed that no distributor has yet put in removable subs. Compared
to the Tartan PAL DVD the subs are very poor and the picture quality is
inferior. The Tartan is cropped on the top and bottom but the Water
Bearer is cropped on both sides, which you notice very much at the
opening credits as they unreadable. The sound is also poor on the Water
Bearer. It does however show that the Image Entertainment disc has had
manipulation on the aspect ratio.

The Image
Entertainment has compressed the aspect ratio so that everyone looks
squished. There is visible print damage in spots on the Out Of
Print Image Entertainment disc. We can now verify some issues of aspect
ratio and cropping while looking at the Water Bearer print. The Tartan
disc has some visible digital manipulation and has taken some grain from
the original image. It also has some contrast boosting. There are no
excessive scratches or dirt on either the Tartan or Water Bearer print.
Although hazy at times, the quality of both are still much better than
the 'Out of Print' version. There is no longer a reason to
pay an arm and a leg on EBay for the Image Disc in Region 1 now that
Water Bearer have put this out.

The Tartan is softer
and cropped, so although I am unhappy with the current state of this
film on DVD I will go with the Tartan for strictly the clearity of the image for now.
the Water Bearer has a nice documentary on Pasolini. The
subs on the Water Bearer are very poor and look to be duplicates of the
Image release probably meaning they used the same print. This is a tough
call... but I am glad I own both Tartan and Water Bearer ( for the doc).